


Roll For Damage

by Shadowscast



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Characters Play Dungeons & Dragons, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves is a Mess, Klaus-typical content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:28:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast
Summary: Dave is new in town, and looking for a way to make friends.  His coworker, Vanya, invites him to join the Dungeons & Dragons game she runs for her siblings.She warns Dave that her family can be a bit much, but nothing could have prepared Dave for the experience of meeting her brother Klaus.(Dave might be falling in love with a manic raccoon nightmare boy.)
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 54
Kudos: 66
Collections: EnKlave Fest 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [EnKlave Fest 2021](https://enklavefest.tumblr.com/)
> 
> My prompt was: _Modern AU. Vanya is Klaus’s sister and DMs their Dungeons & Dragons campaign. She invites her coworker, Dave, to a session (whatever other characters you want can also be in the party)._
> 
>  **Content warning:** Although this is a modern, no-powers AU, the Klaus of this story has a lot in common with the Klaus of canon. So please assume that all of the usual Klaus warnings apply. Additionally, since this is an AU, there are a few story elements which are _not_ from canon, and which some people might want to be warned about. The warnings are fairly spoilery for the fic, though, so I've decided to put them in a separate chapter. Click through to [chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211927/chapters/72251463) if you prefer to play it safe and see specific trigger warnings.
> 
> (Chapter 1 is light and fluffy. But there will be darker stuff later.)
> 
>  **Posting schedule:** I don't have one yet, sorry! Please enjoy this teaser chapter. There will be more chapters eventually! That's all I can tell you.
> 
> Thanks to the wonderful [yourlibrarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian) for beta-reading!

Starting a new life in a new city at age 29 wasn't as easy as Dave had originally hoped.

He had a place to live, and a job. Basic needs: met. Hooray.

But three months in, he hadn't really made any _friends_ , and he was getting pretty lonely. So when he noticed one of his coworkers reading a Dungeons & Dragons rule book in the break room one afternoon, he decided to take a chance.

"Hi there," he said, plopping himself down next to her on the couch. "You play?"

His coworker looked up with an expression of surprise. She was a petite woman with long brown hair. No makeup. Dave had no idea what her name was; he'd never talked to her before. "Um, D&D?" she said. "Well, I'm about to. I'm starting a campaign on Sunday."

"Cool," Dave said. "Hey, any chance your group has room for another player? I played a bit back in Dallas, but I don't know anybody here."

She flinched a little, and closed the rule book—it was the Dungeon Master's Guide, Dave noticed. "Well, we're sort of a closed group," she said.

Dave bit back his disappointment. Oh well, it had been a long shot. But hey, at least maybe he could manage to _chat_ with his coworker a bit. "You're running the game?" he asked, nodding at the cover. "That's ambitious, if you've never played before."

"I've run games in other systems," she said. "We decided to try D&D this time, since, you know. It's such a classic."

"It sure is," Dave agreed. "You know, my dad _still_ thinks it's got something to do with devil-worship."

She gave a startled laugh. "Really?"

"Yeah, well..." Dave let out a little sigh, not entirely voluntarily. "There's a bunch of reasons I left Dallas."

Awkward silence. Dave stared morosely at his hands, fingers tapping on his knees.

"Families ... can be rough," the woman ventured after a moment.

"Sure can," Dave agreed. And then, seeing the slightly worried, sympathetic look she was giving him now, he made a sudden decision: he would be honest with her. After all, keeping himself all closed up hadn't gotten him anywhere yet in terms of making friends. The worst that could happen if he told her the truth was ... well, the _worst_ that could happen was that she told everybody at work, and everybody was horrified, and he was mysteriously let go for 'unrelated reasons' before his next shift. But he didn't really think that would happen here. Everyone here seemed a lot more liberal than Dave was used to. Which had been the whole point of moving here, actually. So. He cleared his throat, and added, "Mine has officially disowned me. Since they found out I'm gay."

The woman's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

Dave immediately regretted the over-sharing. Even if she wasn't homophobic, she was a total stranger _and_ a coworker, and she didn't need to know these extremely personal details about his life, gah. "It's fine," he said, standing up. "I should get back to work. Have fun with your game!"

"Wait!" she said. "My gaming group—it's just me and my siblings. But if you think you can handle our weirdness, I'm sure everybody would be fine with you joining us."

"Really?" Dave beamed at her.

Okay, it was obviously a pity invitation, but he'd take it.

"I'm Vanya, by the way," she said, holding out her hand.

Dave shook her hand, feeling happier than he had in months. "Pleased to meet you, Vanya. I'm Dave."

* * *

Vanya lived in a second-floor walk-up in a small building in a shabby part of town. Dave, who lived in a _different_ shabby part of town, had to take two buses to get there.

He didn't want to be late, so he ended up arriving twenty minutes early. He walked around the block until he was only _five_ minutes early, and then he rang her doorbell.

When he entered Vanya's apartment, he was relieved to see that he wasn't the first one there. A tall, beautiful Black woman in stylish clothes stood up from the couch to greet him as Vanya ushered him in.

"Allison, this is Dave," Vanya said. "That guy from my work that I mentioned. Dave, this is my sister Allison."

"Nice to meet you," Dave said, shaking Allison's hand and smiling. She and Vanya looked absolutely nothing alike; Dave didn't think they could be even half-siblings, biologically.

"And that's our brother Luther," Vanya said, waving her hand at a closed laptop sitting on an end table.

"Ah," Dave said. "He doesn't look very much like you. I'm guessing he's adopted?" As soon as he'd made the joke, he wished he could take it back—he didn't want to seem like he was prying about their actual family situation.

But Allison and Vanya both laughed. "He looks a lot shorter from this angle," Allison said, waving at the computer.

"He's in Alaska right now," Vanya added, more prosaically. "He plays via Zoom. We'll ping him when everybody gets here."

"Actually we're all adopted," Allison mentioned. "Did Vanya tell you?"

Dave shook his head. "All she told me was that there's six of you. That's cool, though. I'm an only child."

The next sibling to arrive was an Asian man wearing a blue t-shirt with a friendly-looking cartoon octopus on it.

"Nice shirt," Dave greeted him.

"Thanks!" the man said. "You must be Dave. I'm Ben."

Allison glanced at her elegant silver watch. "Well, it's two PM. Anybody want to guess how late Klaus is going to be this time?"

"No, Diego said he'd bring him," Vanya said. "They should be here soon."

"Why don't we get Luther online, then," Allison said. "Give him a chance to say hi to Dave."

Luther was a square-jawed, blond white guy with a friendly smile. He seemed to be in a tent.

"Hi Dave!" he said. "You work at the bookstore with Vanya?"

Dave nodded. "Thanks for letting me join your game." He looked around at all of the currently-present siblings. "Seriously, thanks everybody. I haven't had much luck meeting people in the city yet, so this means a lot to me."

"Vanya mentioned that you've played before," Allison said. "So that might be useful."

Dave shrugged. "I'm not an expert, but I'll help out where I can. Vanya told me that this is your first D&D game, but you've played other RPGs?"

Ben nodded. "This will be our third campaign. Our first game was GURPs, and then we did a steampunk Fate variant."

"Hey, guys, do you think maybe this time we can manage to end the campaign without destroying the world?" Luther asked from the computer.

"Doubtful," Allison said.

"Hey, c'mon," Ben said. "Third time's the charm, right?" He offered Allison a high five, and she rolled her eyes and returned it.

Just then, the door buzzer sounded again. "Great, that should be Diego and Klaus!" Vanya said.

Diego turned out to be a Latino man with shaggy hair and a couple of alarming facial scars. Despite the warm weather, he was wearing black cargo pants and a ragged black knit sweater. The other guy, Klaus ...

Dave tried not to stare.

He had short, wavy black hair, and a close-trimmed goatee. He was wearing loose cotton drawstring pants with an airy, floral purple and green print, and a bright pink crop top printed with a shiny rainbow heart front and center. A little incongruously, he also wore a thick black leather choker collar with silver studs and a solid-looking ring in the front, and matching wrist cuffs. He had a battered canvas messenger bag slung over one shoulder, festooned with patches and black sharpie doodles.

And.

Klaus had the most beautiful eyes Dave had ever seen. Ringed with smudged black eyeliner, irises a complex hazel green; the moment his gaze caught Dave's, Dave felt like Klaus was looking straight into his _soul_.

Apparently unaware of the effect he'd just had on Dave, Klaus kicked off his battered, untied Doc Marten boots, leaving himself barefoot, and then climbed over the back of the couch and flopped with his head on Ben's lap and his legs dangling over Allison's lap, ankles hooked on the far arm of the couch. "It is _hot_ out there," he moaned. "Diego made me wait for ten minutes in the car while he bought snacks. I nearly broiled."

"Not my fault you're banned from every convenience store within three miles of here," Diego said, handing the bag of junk food to Vanya. "You could've left the car door open to stay cooler."

"I can get you a glass of water if you want," Vanya offered Klaus. "Oh, and give me your cell phone to charge."

That struck Dave as a slightly odd interaction, but maybe Klaus had texted earlier that his battery was getting low? Anyway, Klaus fished a phone out of his bag and handed it over to Vanya.

"Can I have some water too, Van?" Diego asked.

"Sure," Vanya said. "Anybody else?"

When Allison and Ben also requested water, Dave offered to help Vanya with the glasses.

Her kitchen wasn't fully separate from the living room; there was a wide archway delineating the spaces, rather than any kind of door, and there was also a small dining nook in between. In the kitchen space, Dave and Vanya weren't entirely out of sight of her siblings, and probably they weren't exactly out of earshot either. Vanya pitched her voice low over the running water when she said, "Don't mind Klaus, okay? You'll get used to him."

"Um," Dave said. He hoped that he hadn't been giving Klaus noticeably weird looks already. "I don't mind him. Why would I mind him?"

"He can be a bit much," Vanya said. "Ah, and just to warn you—he has, like, _zero_ concept of personal space. He'll probably drape himself over you at some point before the session's over, unless you ask him not to. If you ask him not to, he'll respect that and he won't be offended. I can pull him aside and talk to him about it before we get started if you want."

"No, that's all right," Dave said quickly. "It wouldn't bother me. If that's the way he is with everybody." He hoped he hadn't said that _too_ fast.

He hoped he hadn't visibly blushed.

He followed Vanya back to the living room, balancing three glasses of water in his hands. And then, even though he'd been sitting in one of the armchairs before, Dave sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace.

Because it occurred to him that it would be easier for Klaus to come over and lean against him if he was on the floor.

Oh man, what was he doing?

* * *

"Okay, let's start with everybody introducing their characters," Vanya said. She'd taken over the armchair that Dave had previously been sitting in, and she'd set up her game master's screen at one end of the coffee table. "You all filled out your character sheets ahead of time, right?"

"I emailed you mine yesterday," Luther said. The laptop was set up so that he had everybody in frame, and Vanya had attached external speakers so the sound of his voice was clear. "Did you get it?"

"The goliath paladin? Yes, it was fine," Vanya said.

"Wait," Dave said. "What's a goliath?"

"Oh, it's not in the core rule books," Vanya said. "I'm allowing Volo's Guide to Monsters, too."

"Speaking of which, I'm an aasimar sorcerer," Klaus said. "At level three, I'll get glowing angelic wings!" He beamed. "Oh, Vanvan, can I have one of those little secret card thingies?"

Vanya brought out an index card and a pen from behind her screen and handed them to Allison, who passed them on to Klaus. Klaus scribbled something quickly—he was left-handed, Dave noticed, and it looked like he had something written on the palms of his hands?—and passed the card back to Vanya via Allison.

Vanya read the card, and frowned. "I'm willing to allow this rules-wise, but ... are you sure, Klaus?"

"Think of it as helping me process my shitty life experiences!" Klaus said.

Vanya shrugged. "All right then. Let me know if you want to back out later, though. We don't _have_ to play it that way."

Dave was curious about that exchange, but he figured everything would become more clear in time.

After that, everyone else briefly introduced their characters. Dave had made a human fighter, which he felt a little sheepish about—but not knowing anything about his fellow players ahead of time, he'd decided to go as vanilla as possible.

Maybe his previous life experiences had made him a little too reluctant to draw attention to himself.

Not that anybody was paying much attention to Dave _at all_ , once the actual playing started. The siblings' patter and in-jokes flew fast and furious over his head. Half the time Dave wasn't sure whether they were referring to events from their real lives or from their past campaigns.

In-game, they had a fairly simple task to accomplish. They'd all been drawn to a small mountain village by news of the death of an old wizard who had played an important role in each of their lives.

("What kind of role?" Luther asked.

"You can decide later and let me know," Vanya said. "For today, I'd just like to get the plot moving.")

The wizard's servant told them that a goblin had broken into the keep in the night after the wizard died, and had stolen an ornate box containing the wizard's most private notes. The party was tasked with tracking down the goblin and retrieving the wizard's notebook.

Their first encounter was with a small pack of coyotes. And Dave discovered that for a supposedly experienced group of players, Vanya's siblings were _not_ good at teamwork.

"Everybody stand behind me!" Luther declared.

"I'm going in and stabbing the lead coyote," Diego said.

"I'm casting animal friendship," Allison said.

"Um, shouldn't we roll for initiative first?" Dave suggested. Vanya gave him a grateful look.

So. Luther ended up at the back of the party because everybody ran past him. Allison's animal friendship spell failed on coyote #2 because of the heart-wrenching yips of coyote #1, which Diego had stabbed. Coyote #3 bit Klaus, scored a critical hit, and took him down to zero hit points.

" _What_?" Klaus yelped. "I'm already _dead_?"

"You should've stayed behind me," Luther said.

"You shouldn't have made constitution your dump stat," Diego said.

"But I needed to be preeeetty," Klaus wailed. He was still lying with his head on Ben's lap; Ben petted his hair, giving him a bemused smile.

"Of course you did," Diego said.

"You're not dead," Vanya clarified. "You'll start making death saves on the next round. If you get three successes before you get three failures, you'll stabilize and just lie there unconscious. Or somebody could heal you before then."

"I can get to him next round if somebody will guard my back," Ben, who was playing a cleric, volunteered.

"Her," Klaus corrected him. "I'm a girl aasimar."

"C'mon, Ben," Allison said. "You know Klaus always plays a girl."

Dave looked at the little stand-up cardboard tags that were representing their characters on the coffee table. "I can protect Ben," he said. "Vanya, I'm going to move over next to Klaus—"

"Pheriel the Radiant," Klaus corrected him.

"—I'm going to move over next to Pheriel, and ready my action. If a coyote moves to attack Pheriel or Ben, I'll attack it."

The battle continued. Klaus failed a death save, Dave fended off a coyote, and then Ben cast Cure Wounds on Pheriel with a good roll.

"Okay Klaus, that wakes you up and you're fine," Vanya said. "In fact, you're at full health. You're still prone, though, so on your next turn you'll need to spend half your movement to stand up."

"This system doesn't seem very realistic," Luther complained from the computer.

"Oh man, I am _not_ going back to GURPS," Diego said. "That was like doing the coursework for a physics PhD every time I wanted to throw a fucking knife."

"Guys, we all agreed we'd give D&D a try," Vanya said, glaring at Diego and the laptop. "It's not meant to be realistic."

"Hey, Van, can I stand up now?" Klaus asked.

"It's not your turn yet. You go after Allison."

By the time Klaus's turn came around, the coyotes had been dispatched.

"I stand up," Klaus said, "and kiss this brave, handsome human fighter who came to my rescue."

"Hey, _I'm_ the one who came to your rescue," Ben pointed out.

"Oh, do you want a kiss?" Klaus looked up at Ben and made air kisses.

Ben rolled his eyes. "Nah, that's fine. Go ahead and kiss Dave."

"Do I have to make a roll, Vanvan?" Klaus asked.

Vanya looked slightly flustered. "Well, there aren't really rules for kissing. I guess you can just do it. Unless Dave wants to resist, in which case I guess it's a grapple check."

"Uh, I don't resist," Dave said. His neck felt warm, and his jeans were suddenly a little uncomfortably tight.

"Smooches!" Klaus said happily.

"So can we get on with tracking this goblin?" Allison asked.

"Wait a moment." Vanya scribbled something on an index card and leaned over to hand it to Klaus.

Klaus squinted at it, and then said, "Hey guys! The voice in my head says we went the wrong way at that fork in the road two miles back."

"The voice in your head?" Diego repeated, giving Vanya a wary look.

Allison and Ben were frowning at her too.

"He's an aasimar," Luther said. "He's got an angelic guide. Didn't you all read Volo's?"

"I did," Ben said. "Isn't the guide only supposed to appear in her dreams, though?"

"Klaus asked for his character to have a more extended relationship with her deva," Vanya said. "That was the secret note at the start of the session. I'm allowing it because you all need _help_. It was raining in the morning! The goblin left _tracks_ going the other way!"

"Voices in his head, though?" Diego said.

"C'mon, it's fine, we can laugh about it now," Klaus said. And then he squirmed his way into an upright position, somehow sticking his toe in Allison's ear and his elbow in Ben's belly in the process. "Anyway, I need a smoke break. See y'all in ten."

Dave had a crazy impulse to offer to go down with him and keep him company. But, in-game kiss notwithstanding, this man was a total stranger to him. It wasn't Klaus's fault that Dave's heart started racing every time he looked at him. Dave needed to not be weird about this.

Klaus came back from his smoke break smelling not of tobacco but of pot. Dave knew this because instead of returning to the couch, Klaus plunked himself down next to Dave on the floor and flopped against him, head nestled in the crook of Dave's shoulder.

"Told you," Vanya murmured.

Dave resisted his first impulse, which was to tuck his arm around this confusing, beautiful man who'd just snuggled up to him. Klaus had just spent the first half of the session draped all over his _siblings_ ; he clearly didn't mean anything by it. Dave kept his hands firmly on his character sheet, and swallowed. "It's fine," he said.

In the second half of the session, Klaus didn't do very much. This presumably had something to do with the fact that he was totally stoned. None of the siblings seemed to consider this worth remarking on.

Dave's parents, back in Dallas, had been very scornful of drug use of all kinds. Although Dave didn't share their political leanings or their enthusiasm for automatic sentencing for drug-related offenses, he _had_ always firmly believed that using drugs was a mistake and a weakness. Not that he'd ever known anybody who _did_ drugs.

And now the most gorgeous man he'd ever met was lolling against his shoulder, snickering randomly, _seriously_ under the influence, and all Dave could think about was how adorable he was.

So, okay. Dave was revising his understanding of himself and of the world. All part of moving 1400 miles and starting fresh in a new city, right? 

They called an end to the session at five-thirty, just as Dave was starting to get hungry for food more substantial than potato chips and roasted peanuts.

"Same time next week?" Vanya asked, and there was general agreement. "Great! Don't forget to send me your backstories, about how you knew the wizard. Klaus, do you want to go have a nap on my bed?"

"Mmm, sure," Klaus said.

Dave was about to offer to help him up, but Diego got there first, coming over and yanking him up by an arm. Klaus came to his feet like a giggling rag doll. "Nice to meet you, Zeke," he said, calling Dave by his in-game name and giving him a finger-wiggling wave.

"Sorry about Klaus," Allison said to Dave as soon as Klaus was out of the room.

"No, it's really fine," Dave insisted, hoping his blush wasn't indicating just _how_ fine it had been.

"So are you going to keep playing with us?" Luther asked. The blue nylon tent fabric behind him snapped and billowed; it must be windy where he was.

Dave smiled. "I'd like to, if you'll all have me."

"You were a good addition to the party," Ben said. "You really had a way of keeping us on track."

Dave snorted. " _That's_ what you look like when you're on track?"

"End of session one, and we haven't split the party yet!" Ben said, grinning. "Dave, you're magic."

"Oh my god," Vanya said. "The way he kept asking, 'what does everybody think?' and encouraging you all to come to a consensus about things. I think this is one of the smoothest sessions I've ever run."

Dave tried to decide if they were having him on. "I just thought we should stop and make a plan instead of half of us running into a troll cave."

" _So_ happy to have you aboard," Ben declared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the fic for now (there are more chapters to come, but later!). The next chapter isn't a real chapter; I'm just using it as a place to set the content/trigger warnings, to hide them from anyone who doesn't want to see them.


	2. Content/trigger warnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not part of the fic. Its purpose is simply to give a few detailed content and/or trigger warnings, in a place where people who prefer to avoid spoilers can easily avoid seeing them. If you're not here for the content and/or trigger warnings, do not read this "chapter."

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Warning #1: A character's past suicide attempt will be discussed. Injuries related to the suicide attempt will be depicted.

Warning #2: There will be a depiction of a character having a mental illness. There will be depiction of internalized ableism and self-loathing on the part of the character with the mental illness.

Warning #3: A character will display self-harming behaviours, including in relation to sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read the fic now, return to [Chapter 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211927/chapters/71725659).


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